It’s the last dance. After all those years of foot-stomping, heel-tapping, stiff-backed, step-dance prancing, the Riverdance folk are hanging up their shoes.  Well, that’s what we’re told anyway.
Truth is, it’s only the North American market that will see a hiatus of the popular show.
“We’re going to India and China, lots of places,” says sprightly Caterina Coyne,  Riverdance star and champion Irish dancer. “And there will be a new Irish dance show in North America from the Riverdance folks before you can say leprechaun. You can count on that.”
Coyne was born in Surrey, England, but grew up dancing in Ireland. This summer, she’ll be dancing her feet off in Dublin at The Gaiety Theatre before having a holiday in Galway where she has a permanent home.

“You could say Riverdance started as a real phenomenon. I mean, it was a small part of a Eurovision Song Contest in 1994. It just took off from there. It was partly Bill Whelan’s music and partly the smart dance steps I suppose. It’s just been entertaining people ever since.”
“It’s a gruelling thing to dance eight Riverdance shows a week,” Coyne says. “Hard on the knees, legs and back. It makes you ache all over. Doing it on tour, as we are now, every night is opening night and you feel such responsibility to make the show good.”
Coyne says a physiotherapist travels with the troupe and is kept busy all the time.
“The thing is you forget how hard it is when you’re up there doing the performance. It’s just all about making the show work.”
Coyne says the life of a dancer is governed by injury and health, so you protect yourself the best way you can.
“You’ve got to look after yourself. People come and go in this show, but I’m in it for the long haul. And that’s because I love it.”
Coyne has been stomping those feet for eight years now and she has no intention of stopping.
“I love the choreography. It’s 100 per cent high-energy stuff. Is it traditional Irish step dance? Yes and no. The costumes, of course, are quite different. Irish folk dance outfits would be too heavy and cumbersome for what we do. I just know that before Riverdance there was nothing really for an Irish dancer. This show changed all that.”
Coyne admits there are recorded taps to augment the live performance on stage, but she says these sweeteners on the soundtrack are just that, a form of augmentation.
“We’re doing everything flat out, I can tell you that.”
Coyne laughs when you suggest the show is as much about guys in tight pants and girls in micro-minis as it is about dance.
“If you’re saying the show makes Irish dancing sexy, that’s true enough. And it’s definitely a show where you’re free to express yourself. What isn’t traditional about it is the way we use our hands. That’s not really part of Irish folk dance.”
Coyne dances the star part in this travelling production and she says that means being an example.
“The other dancers look up to you. And in some ways you are the face of the show. People expect plenty of you.”

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 30 years

Read this on the Riverdance website: Dancing off into sunset, for now

Although music has always had a prominent place in her life, Niamh Ní Charra didn’t plan on a career as a professional musician. She was studying to be an electrical engineer, in fact, when fate stepped in to take her life in a completely new direction.

“I always loved playing music, but I also believed I’d never make a living out of it so I was studying engineering to have a career,” Ní Charra said in a phone interview with Boston Event Guide. “I was playing a seisiún, which is a sort of jam session for traditional Irish music, at The Burren in Somerville and some people from the Riverdance show happened to be in the audience. When an opening came up with the company later on, they contacted me and asked if I wanted to join them. I immediately said yes.”

Ní Charra ended up touring as a fiddler with Riverdance for eight years, leaving the show six years ago to pursue her own music career. Last year, as the producers started putting together the lineup for the show’s grand finale tour, they asked Ní Charra to come back on the road for, as she put it, a final ‘hurrah!’

“It’s been a much more emotional experience than I imagined it would be,” Ní Charra said about joining Riverdance for its final tour. “I knew it was a big deal just from the amount of emails and phone calls I’ve been getting from friends asking me to get them tickets – which is quite flattering in itself – but the emotion we feel from the audience when we’re up on the stage is very powerful. I don’t want to say this is just a job for us, because we all love performing in the show, but when you’re in the middle of it it’s not always easy to get any perspective on what it means to people. Folks grew up with this show. They take Irish dance classes because they saw it, or learn to play the fiddle after watching Riverdance. That’s amazing, when you think about it.”

Riverdance will be at The Opera House, Boston April 13-15. Tickets start at $28.

BroadwayInBoston.com

Read this on the Riverdance website: Ní Charra Returns to Fiddle for Final Riverdance Fling

Riverdance was born in 1995, the energetic young offspring of Big Eighties shows like Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon.

It was bred with that curious – and theatrically unsustainable – mind-set that bigger is better. It’s a lovely relic – unlikely, it seems, to have made such a remarkable global impression if it were born in these cost-conscious times.

That makes its last stop in Boston – April 13-15 at Boston Opera House – a milestone worth recognizing.

Of course, there’s no future in shows built around helicopters hovering above stage, and it’s probably also a deal-breaker to tour a dance show that requires teams of professional dancers. Dance, like plays, has gotten small. And although we all know it’s dangerous to trade art for opulence, there’s no denying the power of a line of dancers – extending from one end of Boston’s biggest stages to the other – hammering out tightly choreographed Irish dance steps that look like the height of military precision and sound like Celtic thunder.

The show is a feat of teamwork, built around the idea of a dancer being part of a whole, being part of something bigger than herself. Despite the fact that the show gave us Michael Flatley,  Riverdance is not a show about stars, it’s about the company. And, arriving on the heels of street-bred dance shows like Stomp and Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk, Riverdance  found humor and insight with its playful competition between step and tap dancers, a competition that’s clearly more of an appreciation than a rivalry.
Dancing is in these days, as you may have noticed. And it’s not really professional dancing; it’s the amateurs who are stealing the show. Ellen DeGeneres’ dancing became a signature moment of her hit talk show, and we cringe at the foibles of the overmatched “stars” of Dancing with the Stars, but deep down we admire them for dancing like nobody is watching, even though everyone is watching.
You can’t give Riverdance all the credit, but it surely deserves some of it. Just ask the suburban moms trundling their kids off not to soccer games, but to Irish step-dancing classes and competitions, complete with over-the-top costumes, sometimes hand-sewn by moms who can’t explain their kids’ obsession, but secretly love it. It’s a phenomenon that certainly wouldn’t have occurred with such force without frequent Riverdance stops in Boston, rousing our Irish roots.

It’s a fitting legacy for the show. I remember when I first saw Riverdance all those years ago, it seemed odd that the audience sat so still, spiritually moved by the spectacle onstage, but physically, literally, unmoved. Good dancing makes you want to dance, and Riverdance does that. Not only is this incoming production a chance to see, one last time, one of the defining touring shows of the past 20 years, it’s a chance to pay tribute to a show that, I’m sure, swells the ranks of local dance classes, where young girls and boys turn step dancing from something you simply see into something you do.

Read more: www.patriotledger.com/entertainment

Where: Opera House, Boston, MA
When: April 13, 2012 – April 15, 2012.
Shows: Friday & Saturday at 8pm. Sunday at 6.30pm
Matinee: Saturday at 2pm & Sunday at 1pm

Read this on the Riverdance website: “one of the defining touring shows of the past 20 years”

Riverdance performs in Kent State PAC, New Philadelphia, OH

4th and 5th April 2012. Ticket Prices: $42 – $61. Box Office 330 308 6400.

The show, in two acts, has 19 scenes which take the audience on a magical journey with spectacular backdrops and lighting that enhances the performance.

English-born Chloey Turner, who started Irish dancing at age 8, is one of the lead dancers the audience will see when the tour pulls into New Philadelphia.

She is an accomplished dancer and a personal fitness trainer who believes fitness and nutritional techniques have been invaluable during her career.

In a telephone interview with The Times-Reporter, Turner said seeing the original Riverdance production caught her interest.

“I don’t have any Irish connection,” she said, adding her father — her biggest fan — is of French descent. “Riverdance inspired me and I started dancing and winning some competitions and in 2007 I got a call to join the company — so I feel very lucky.”

Turner said the two-hour show is high-energy and she goes through seven or eight costume changes. That keeps people behind the scenes busy as most dancers are involved in all the scenes.

“We have an amazing wardrobe crew,” she said.

She said the show has evolved and features other types of dancing such as Flamenco.

The first act deals with people in a primitive world coming to terms with the world and themselves.

“It’s a lot about myths and legends,” said Turner.

The second act is about how people learned to belong to the world.

Turner said performing up to eight shows per week can be taxing. She said it is important to keep up with exercise during time off and there is a physical and massage therapist for the performers.

With about 60 people involved with the production, Turner said it is like traveling with a big family. Time off is spent gym training, watching movies and hitting different restaurants.

Exploring the world is another part of the Riverdance experience. Turner has been to places such as Singapore, Japan and Canada. She calls Radio City in New York the biggest stage on which she’s performed and a highlight of her time touring in the states.

“It’s quite a prestigious venue,” she said. “America has been the best audience.”

When the U.S. and Canada tour winds up in June, Turner said she is planning to spend some time in Dublin over the summer. Then she will be back dancing again as the production visits countries like India and China.

Read this on the Riverdance website: Last chance to see Riverdance in New Philadelphia, OH

By Sid Smith, Special to the Tribune
March 15, 2012

Perfectly timed for St. Patrick’s Day, “Riverdance,” the spectacular display of Irish folk dance, speckled with the arts of a few other ethnicities in its mix, returns for what’s billed as its farewell visit, on view through Sunday at the Oriental Theatre.

Surely it winds down as one of the more phenomenal and unlikely ventures in pop dance history, centered on what seemed in the beginning an eccentric craft, Irish step-dancing. But, in its tour, it then went on to make that craft familiar and even beloved while anchor of a unique variety show only now nearing its close after an impressive 15 years.

“Riverdance” rendered a highly competitive past time commercially compelling, while heightening awareness of the thrills, pluck and artistic subtleties of folk dance in general. Shrewdly throwing in flamenco and tap, it arrived as part of a broader, worldwide revival in percussive dance, a revival it helped inspire, and a reminder that people everywhere love to tap their feet and always will.

The show itself should be a bit creaky by now, but Tuesday’s opening proved anything but. The energy is still sky high, the seductiveness still irresistible, in part, it must be said, because the trappings of the show were always a tad dated and greeting-card corny to begin with. The wholesome, New Age circus gloss isn’t any more old-fashioned now than it was back in the ’90s. You tend to look past it to relish the extraordinary technical virtuosity.

The cast is excellent, the enthusiasm infectious and the technical skills better than ever. That starts with Tuesday’s outstanding principles, Padraic Moyles and Alana Mallon. She’s graceful, thin-limbed but exquisitely muscled, keen in her stepping and yet able to stylishly master the ballet-like stretches that depart here and there from all the step-dancing clickety-clacks. Moyles, sporting a slight resemblance to actor Gabriel Byrne in his younger years, is an irrepressible showoff and peacock, as delighted by his own performance as anybody. But Riverdance always served as a cheerleader for its art, and Moyles is as persuasive a cheerleader as they come, looser and more freewheeling in his overall approach, but electrifying in his intricate footwork and breathtaking speed.

Indeed, the Act II tap and Irish square off, a metaphor for American immigrant conflict and reconciliation, is as exciting as ever, if not more so, Moyles deliciously showing off his uncanny athletics while well matched by two dynamite, post-Savion Glover contemporary tappers, DeWitt Fleming Jr. and Michael E. Wood.

The show always boasted fine flamenco specialists, but Marita Martinez-Rey is especially beautiful, combining rapid-fire feet with flowing, undulating and sensual body work. She also has some of Moyles’ contagious enthusiasm, warmly inviting the audience into her art.

The musicians have always been a key component of the variety, and here the Uilleann pipes are mastered by Matt Bashford, Rose Duffy is a lickety-split fiddler and percussionist Mark Alfred is a one-man spectacle all by himself. Tap-dancer Wood doubling as baritone delivers his solo with mournfulness and compassion, and the clean, high-pitched voices of the choir are sonorous and pure.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.

Tickets: $30-$85.

Box Office: 800-775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com

Read this on the Riverdance website: After 15 years, ‘Riverdance’ continues to kick up a storm

Read this on the Riverdance website: Good Morning Texas – TV interview with Padraic Moyles and Niamh O’Connor

Purchase your tickets today!

Kursaal Oostende

24th July to 5th August 2012

Shows:  Tuesday to Friday 20:00,

Saturday 15:00 and 20:00,

Sunday at 14:00 and 18:00.

Tickets cost between €49 and €75.

Tickets now on sale!

Read this on the Riverdance website: Riverdance returns to Oostende, Belgium

DUBLIN’S 3 DAY

NEW YEAR’S FESTIVAL

30 DEC – 1 JAN

NYE Dublin is Dublin’s first official New Year’s festival. This inaugural event was celebrated over the course of 3 days from 30 December 2011 to 1 January 2012 in Dublin’s City Centre.

The city centre will be buzzing as we bring the music straight to you with a host of world class Irish acts taking to the College Green stage. Headliners include the iconic Riverdance, newcomer Bressie, renowned singers Paul Brady and Damien Dempsey and The Coronas. With many more exciting acts to be announced, this concert is sure to be the highlight of the NYE Dublin festival so be sure to get your ticket today!

As Dublin’s biggest supporters Failté Ireland and Dublin City Council  saw the requirement for an event that would highlight Dublin as a fantastic European destination during this festive season.  Through their funding and on-going support NYE Dublin will animate our beautiful city like never before with street performance, theatre, art, markets and entertainment.

Whatever the weather Dublin will be set ablaze with the energy, festivity, excitement and celebration of this annual holiday.

Don’t miss your chance to witness this dance and stage phenomenon and celebrate this New Year’s Eve with Ireland’s very own Riverdance.

BOOK TICKETS HERE!

Riverdance was first performed during the 7-minute interval of the Eurovision Song Contest on 30 April 1994.

It received a standing ovation. Later that year, the BBC commissioned a repeat performance of the act for the 1994 Royal Variety Show, when it was introduced on stage by Sir Terry Wogan. At Congratulations : 50 Years of Eurovision,  it was named as one of the most popular interval acts in the history of the contest.

Almost two decades later and Riverdance has grown from strength to strength. Now one of Ireland’s most internationally renowned acts , Riverdance has promoted our green isle with their traditional style of dance adapted to a new modern audience.  Bill Whelan’s Riverdance has become a global success, reaching homes and stadia from New York to Beijing and Paris to Australia.

Read this on the Riverdance website: Riverdance perform at NYE Dublin

Craig Ashurst and Tannya Joaquin

Watch Craig Ashurst during his live TV appearance on Hawaii News Now ‘Sunrise Morning Show’ where he teaches anchorperson Tannya Joaquin a few steps.

Watch Craig here!

Caterina teaches a step to host on Kohn2

Caterina Coyne teaches a step to the host on Kohn2

Watch Caterina here!

Read this on the Riverdance website: Craig Ashurst and Caterina Coyne on Hawaii TV

Here are some photos from the week…

Caterina Coyne did radio interview with arts and culture reporter Noe Tanigawa at Hawaii Public Radio

Caterina Coyne at Ohana Broadcasting

Caterina Coyne being interviewed on Ohana Broadcasting

Caterina Coyne being interviewed on the popular morning radio program Perry & Price (Michael Perry & Larry Price) broadcast live on KSSK Radio from Jimmy Buffett’s at the Beachcomber (located at the Holiday Inn Waikiki Beachcomber Resort). There is a live audience there for breakfast

Caterina teaches an Irish dance step to a member of the breakfast audience!

Caterina Coyne with oldies 107.9 DJ Ed Kanoi

Read this on the Riverdance website: Press Calls in Hawaii